


I raise my cup to him

by sciencemyfiction



Series: Story of the Interstellar Star System - B Side [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Death Implied, Gen, Medical Abuse, Medical Trauma, They're Only Clones After All, but not permanent death!, but seriously not good things, cloning and all the moral baggage with that, only sad things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-08-16
Packaged: 2018-12-15 19:04:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11812296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sciencemyfiction/pseuds/sciencemyfiction
Summary: Let it never be said that Shirogane Takashi lacks determination. Maybe this time balance, maybe another time depth of vision; maybe the implant is malfunctioning or the muscles haven't grown properly, but always, always, the determination remains.





	1. Y0XT01

Shiro wakes up in stages. First he feels the cold air of the ship, feels goosebumps, feels the metal of a table cold beneath him. That's odd, because--because shouldn't the paladin armor be blocking out the chill? It always has before...Then it's smell, a distinct and persistent, familiar medical smell, a little like melting plastic and a lot like a hospital. His stomach starts to twist.

He doesn't want to open his eyes, not really, but he must. 

It's painful, at first, bright and piercing purple light everywhere. The panic starts to set in even before he catches the Galra emblem on the wall, and then he startles himself with a wordless moan of fear, scrambling backward off the medical table. It's a heavy fall. Shiro's reflexes are still good, even if his muscles feel a bit sluggish. He's back on his feet almost instantly, hands up to defend against attack, but-- no one else is here. His clothes have been replaced, the paladin armor stripped away and prisoner's rags thrown back on him. He plucks at them gingerly, shivering a bit in the icy air. It almost feels like he just woke from a cryopod; certainly he's disoriented enough.

No, no no no. This doesn't make sense. This doesn't make sense at all. How-- why is he here? What happened after the fight with Zarkon?

Shiro doesn't dare make a sound, slipping out of the medical room he finds himself in and coming almost immediately upon a docking corridor. His heart skips a beat, fear giving way to hope as he checks to see if there might be a ship at the end of this bay, waiting for him. If it-- yes!  _Yes_ , there's a pod just waiting...for...

Hm.

There's a tiny voice in the back of Shiro's head screaming, begging him to ignore caution and just take this opportunity, no matter how suspiciously convenient it seems. That's the part of him that's clawing at the edges of his self-control, anxiety spiking every time he catches sight of the Galra sigil again. Every second that passes by makes this more real, more horrifying, and for a long, long moment Shiro's lost in his own head, trying to keep his breathing steady while he checks his body fearfully for signs of further unwanted modification. No no no no no, nothing different, nothing new, he's still him he's still  _Shiro_ , which is a small but lasting comfort. He closes his eyes, leaning heavily on the wall of the corridor until he can get his breathing steady again. Then he fights that voice down until it's calm enough, quiet enough to think. 

And, Shiro thinks, it's very suspicious, very convenient indeed, that there's a ship standing open and unguarded right next to a medical room that had just happened to have him in it, also unattended. 

So he starts to head back up out of the hallway, keeping to the shadows, and looks around, up and down the  corridor that the docking-offshoot came from. There are no guards here either, no patrols, but he's able to spot another few medical rooms like this one, further up ahead. There could be others here, maybe unknown prisoners, maybe the other Paladins, so he begins to creep towards the nearest room, peeking inside. Nothing. It's the same for every one of the medical chambers, leaving him with little choice but to continue in towards the heart of the ship. He'd been avoiding the inner doors that lead from this corridor to the next, fearful, but by now the fear is starting to feel manageable. His curiosity, on the other hand, is piqued, and with it is some nebulous thrill of horror that he can't quite place. Something is very wrong, and Shiro knows it is wrong, but he doesn't know why. 

He walks through the doors leading deeper into the ship, and finds another hallway lined with medical rooms. Is this normal? He doesn't remember the last Galra ship he found himself on being so fully stocked with med-beds and sickbays. 

Taking a deep, steadying breath through his nose and holding it a moment, he repeats his search as with the previous corridor, checking every room. Nothing-- no patients, anyway, though he finds more than a few medtechs in his explorations, many of whom seem quite distracted as they discuss some project or other amongst themselves. He doesn't linger long enough to eavesdrop, still nervous to be near them, to risk being re-captured. Finally, he checks the last of this second corridor's ring of medical rooms, and finds yet another empty room. By this point, Shiro is determined to keep exploring. Perhaps he will find answers, or-- failing that-- his missing armor, maybe even information about what happened to the black lion. 

He passes through the doors to the next ring inside, and has to stifle a groan of mounting frustration at how utterly similar all Galra ship design seems to be. Another corridor-- though notably, smaller than the last-- full of medical rooms. 

Almost, he doesn't bother. Almost, he decides that these questions can be saved for a later time, and discretion is the better part of valor. But--

No. Something-- No. He has to keep looking. There might be....something. 

He has to know. 

His heart is pounding in his throat as he checks these medical rooms. Now they are stocked, some with tanks of glowing, purple quintessence. (His head hurts a little.) In some of the tanks are strange masses of flesh. In another room, he finds an engineer bent over a prosthetic not unlike his own, working diligently upon it. Shiro backs out of that room hastily, not wanting to alert the tech to his presence lest they disable his only weapon at the moment with some killswitch he doesn't remember. There are two rooms in which tanks like the ones he is seeing now stand open and empty, their displays reading "ready". One of them has traces of the purple liquid on its floor, while the other looks as-yet unused. 

There are six more doors. 

One of the rooms has a medtech checking up on a skinless thing, much bigger than the formless fleshy creations he saw in the other rooms, and Shiro is haunted by the image, staggers back and out of sight with an audible yelp of surprise. He claps his hand to his mouth, shaking, and waits, trying hard to be silent enough to listen. Did they hear him? the medtech, are they-- will they--?

One. Two. Three. He breathes in, shuddering. Four, five, six, seven. Holds the breath, eight, nine, ten, eleven. Lets it out. Twelve. Thirteen. Okay. Okay. No sound from the medtech. It's fine. He's fine. He's going to keep looking. He's going to find out what they're doing here, and why. 

There are three more doors. 

Shiro opens the next, nursing a deep, unsettling dread. Empty. 

And the next: Full and unlit, with only the eerie glow of the medical tank inside to guide him. 

He feels as though he is moving in a dream, pulled onward by the need to see what's inside the tank, even as some part of him realizes deep down exactly what he's seeing. His breath catches on fear, hands shaking as he reaches out to touch the glass, staring up into the face of  _Shirogane Takashi_ , whose eyes are milky through the purple haze of the quintessence solution he's suspended in. No. There's a bruised look to his face that could mean all sorts of things, but probably means heavy impact, one eye slightly swollen from an injury that he-- he doesn't remember receiving. No, no-- The galra hand matches, the metal inert and hanging there lifelessly while Shiro is asleep, and his hair has grown a little bit since the fight  _how long has it been since the fight_ , the undercut grown out almost to an inch and the rest mirroring it, all gently swirling in the liquid that keeps him asleep, keeps him complacent while they--  _no,_ no no no no no-- while the Galra  _copy him_ , make-- more of him is he the first? How many have they made already? How many have they sent out into space to try to take down team Voltron? Is this even truly him is this the real--

Shiro's eyes are stinging, he can't breathe, his head is spinning  and he starts to reach out with his Galra fingers lit up. No, he won't let-- he won't let this happen, he won't let his other self-- his true self?-- be kept here he won't--

_Ah._

Pain, sharp in his chest. He feels the hollowness of his heart pumping, sees too late the Galra scientist reflected in the stasis-tube as he falls into it, slides down it, cheek dragging on the glass. 

"...no," he whispers, weakly. 

"Tell Commander Imdrak the first test was a failure," sighs a voice he doesn't know. His world is getting smaller, smaller. He cries out to the other Shiro:

"Wake...wake up.  _Wake up!_ "

Then the pain spikes weirdly, through his skull. He tastes blood and sunflowers and there she is, there she is, there she is, the white cat white-- white- cat blue-eyed ghost-seeing cat mom used to call her _Padfoot_ it was a reference she sees him now even though he is in her future and she is dead in the past and her fur is soft and 

this is peace

at last 


	2. Y0XT07

The flickering lights above him are enough to tell him, immediately, where he is, if not why. Shiro doesn't let on that he's awake, hearing the distant chatter above him. Medtechs-- why so tinny, though?-- and something about 'the prisoner'. Probably him. He very subtly moves his right wrist to see if he's been restrained. 

Nope. Good. Time to  _go._

He springs into action before the medtechs can finish their conversation, flying up off of the medical table and stabbing one through the gut with his glowing robotic hand, slicing the other's head off seconds later with a blade of quintessence, forged from his fingertips. They collapse to the floor, and Shiro checks himself for any sign of injury, further tampering-- huh. Where's the paladin armor? And why is he here? Did they fail, did they-- oh, no. Did they get captured after the explosion knocked Voltron apart?

Shiro remembers a little, vague sensations. Floating in space, weirdly, not in the black lion. How'd that happened? And--

Voices coming from down the hall to his right. He lunges behind the door, listening and waiting. Do they know, did they see him attack on a security feed? Probably. He waits, steeling himself, breathing hard but ready for a fight. Feels a little weird, actually. Did they forget to sedate him when they took him here? And how long has it been, anyway? 

He looks around the room for something reflective, and finds a metal plate with unused surgical implements on it. Quietly moving those to the bed, he uses the metal plate to check on his reflection. For a moment, only a moment, he's off-balance. The man staring back at him is wreathed in patchy stubble, and his hair's grown at least an inch, maybe more. That explains, he supposes, why the white lock keeps getting in his eyes, blocking his field of vision. 

"What happened to me?" he wonders, checking his hair with questing fingers, almost doubting what he sees. But no, it's real; it catches on his fingertips and stings when tugged on. With this much growth Shiro may well have been locked away on this ship for weeks, maybe even a month. It's hard to measure since he has no idea how he got here, but the ship will have logs of what's happening, will have dates he can somewhat decode. He might even be able to send out a distress signal, assuming the others haven't also been captured. 

What happened to the voices? Shiro peeks out of the med-room and spots the source of them. They're....just standing there. What?

As he steps out, testingly, they notice him. They're soldiers (or are they soldiers? Maybe they're just drones?), and they pull out weapons, but everything about it seems off. Too easy. He dodges laserfire, leaps close, stabs his hand through one and crunches the other into a wall, and when they fall, sparking and sputtering, he stands over them both, puzzled. This doesn't make sense. Only two guards? Guards that-- what, waited for him? He turns back, walks into the room he came from, and checks the 'med techs'. No, these were drones too. As if they knew he was going to attack whatever was there when he woke, and they wanted him to get the satisfaction of it out of his system without risking any of their people. Shiro runs his hand over the metal plate he'd used before, and looks at himself again, trying to puzzle out what they've done to him. What's wrong with him? Surely  _something_ must be different, somehow, else they would not have set up this scenario in this way. He checks his neck and feels his scalp for any oddities, any disturbances that might indicate subdermal implants added to him. He eyes the metal arm attached to his stump arm, and wonders. Are they controlling him somehow? Is that where it is?

He stays in the med room so long that another set of soldiers approaches, this time real, on-guard, weapons up well before they reach him. 

"What's going on?" He demands, hiding around a corner when they answer him first with a volley of laserfire. He can hear their steps sliding closer, their breath, tightly controlled, and slams his fist into the wall behind him in frustration. 

"Give yourself up, Champion," calls one of the guards, sounding annoyed and a little tired. 

Shiro wants to sneer at that, and throws the metal plate out at them, taking satisfaction in their jumpy response, muttered curses as they waste a few shots on the thing just because it was moving. 

"You gotta know me better than that if you're coming in armed," Shiro says, trying to keep his voice steady.

He makes a break for it, trying to get to the other side of the hall and into a new corridor, but one of them shoots him in the side, melting through a few ribs in the process. Shiro drops like a stone, coughing up blood and sobbing with pain. Everything seemed so clear a moment ago, but now he's dizzy, dizzy...

Spitting blood, Shiro curls in on himself, trying to soothe the burned mess of pain where it feels like his lungs are draining out of his body. 

"Why is this happening?" 

"Alert the commander to begin preparing the next specimen."

One of the guards sighs and agrees to take care of it, in the exact tone of someone boredly waiting for their shift to end on a security detail. Shiro would laugh if he could get enough air in his body to make it happen. Each sip of air is a little smaller than the last, and his vision is rapidly tunneling. 

He begs the remaining guard, in a rattling, raspy whisper:

"Please.... _why_?"

If he gets an answer, he doesn't know. He can't hear it over the roar of blood in his ears. Everything goes dark. 


	3. Y0XT13

When he comes to they have him pinned to the wall with electric-tipped prongs, and he's in rags and shivering and confused and shaking and  _where is he, what's happening?_ nothing makes sense, Shiro starts to speak and they jab forward, silencing him with a sharp jolt of lightning to the gut. He claws at the wall behind him feebly, but there's no escape, and there are seven guards, only one of him. Even at his best, Shiro would probably be in a bit of trouble, here. 

"Stop."

The command comes from the one in the back. He looks important. He has a notch in his left ear and a ragged beard, peppered with red. His eyes aren't the cat-eyes of the Galra, either, no-- not a full blooded Galra. Shiro remembers....something. Some tidbit he learned once, something-- something essential about the Galra that they've been overlooking. It's there and then it's gone, the memory too vague to grasp, and those electric-lanced prongs are lifting to his face and he doesn't dare breathe lest they stab into him again. 

"Do you remember where you are?"

He risks a glance to the notch-eared Galra, trying to figure out if this is a trap, if he will be punished. He's been free almost four months, but it melts away into the fear of captivity so fast when he's alone like this, and the pain and confusion don't help. Shiro starts to open his mouth to answer, then thinks better of it and shakes his head, very slightly. 

"Hm. What's the last thing you  _do_ remember?"

That...is a tough question. He wracks his mind for something to give them, something that isn't inherently telling. They were fighting Zarkon. A powerful spell, black-edged lightning, quintessence drained out of their bodies and their lions and he remembers how his blood hurt, how thinking felt like trying to lift a boulder, how moving was the hardest thing any of them had ever done. But they'd regrouped, he knows that, they'd fought past it, past the echoing, horrible scream of Allura being struck by a refracted energy beam. He remembers the sword, the black bayard in his hand, he remembers ripping Zarkon's robotic image apart. 

"...Zarkon. We- we destroyed him. ...no, not him, the- the armor. The machine he was piloting."

The notch-eared Galra narrows his eyes, and looks about to ask another question when Shiro's curiosity gets the better of him and he asks first. 

"Is he dead? Is that why you're doing this?"

Is that why they're torturing him? He doesn't know how he got here or why he's alone, but he's desperate for answers. The notch-eared Galra smirks wryly, not bothering to answer, and gestures for the guards in front of him to strike again. 

"No, wait--!" 

Pain, sharp and static, snapping along his teeth and gathering in his arm, and Shiro clamps his mouth shut, bites his tongue to focus. He strikes, slicing his arm through the tips of the pronged weapons, severing them all. He lunges forward to go for the soldiers that wielded them, one step, two, when the sound of a rifle blast stops him. He swings around to block with his mechanical arm and a second shot fires, striking him from the front, right in the chest. Not very painful, but the sharp sting of a needle is unmistakeable. Tranquilizers. 

"How absolutely tiring," sighs the notch-eared Galra. "Put him back under completely. He shouldn't remember this by the time he wakes again. We'll keep trying till we get it right."

Shiro doesn't understand what they mean by  _keep trying_ , but he fights desperately to stay awake, even as the guards push forward, restraining him long enough for med-techs to slip in and inject something else into his arm. The world was already getting blurry but now it spins, and Shiro swallows a useless plea, sinking down, down, down....

For a while, Shiro is nowhere. Not awake, not asleep. No nightmares, no thought. He feels like he might see something but it doesn't register in his mind. 

All the stress slides away, all the fear. Everything is equally distant here, all emotion remote, all need. If there are things he must do, they are lost to him right now. He doesn't wonder where he is because he doesn't need to know. 

Gradually, a hard surface beneath him registers. 

"...fff." Hard, and cold. 

Metal? Metal. 

His eyes slide shut, and when he opens them again his head is pounding. How long has it been? He has no way to know. Shiro groans, rolling over on his side to try to ease the stiffness of his shoulder, and slides off of the edge of a bed with a yelp and a thud. He lays on the ground, dazed, and breathes in the smell of iridium alloys, the tangy sharp acridity of it strangely comforting. His stomach hurts, cramped, and when he grazes it lightly with his hand, trying to gauge if he's bleeding, a painful twinge answers. 

" _Ahg-!_ " Bruised. "Wh...?"

How did he get here? Where is here? Shiro drags himself up, hand over hand, but when he catches sight of the Galra sigil he panics, struggling to his feet and casting about for a weapon, anything. No-- oh, no, no no no-- he's here again, how is he--?

His feet won't stay steady under him. It takes a few tries to get out of the room, and only by the time he's made his noisy entrance to the hallway does he realize he might need to be stealthy, to avoid being noticed by the guards. He feels almost inebriated, he's wobbling so badly, but he must keep going, he must find the rest of the team, make sure they're safe. He staggers along, every step costing him a little more of his sense of balance, until he topples to the ground again, lost in a terrible vertigo. He's sick on the floor, but it doesn't make the pain in his stomach go away. 

Over him he starts to hear voices-- not familiar ones, no, angry ones, Galran ones, arguing.  _Waste of time and resources_ , shouts one voice.  _Following orders, and doing my job!_ retorts another. Words and words and words, and Shiro dry heaves, wishing they'd be quiet and make the spinning stop. 

The last thing he hears is a frustrated sigh. 

"This is just like the Lotor project." Irritation, underlaid with a sense almost of defeat. But who is Lotor? 


	4. Y0XT19

Shiro throws one of the drones at the rest, knocking them down like dominos, and ducks the incoming laser fire from more, taking a hit across his knee that drops him to the floor but managing to evade the rest. He crawls to cover as fast as he can, picks up a discarded weapon and fires back up the hall. His head is ringing, still heavy and cottony with whatever they'd used to sedate him, but he's not going to stick around and hope he has time to finish waking up. Hell, the first time he managed to escape the Galra was little short of a miracle, considering how badly out of it he'd been. 

There are too many drones, and he backs away down the corridor, limping until his left leg just completely stops responding below the knee. That's not good. 

He manages, wiping sweat from his eyes, to get to an escape pod and launches immediately. It's do or die. He has no idea where he is or where the others might be, but he has to assume they're not here on this ship because Shiro is not enough of an army to fight his way back to them. There's so little out here that he realizes he won't be able to reach any kind of safety unless his distress signal catches attention before his ship runs out of fuel and oxygen. A twinge shoots up his left leg, strident and painful, and Shiro grits his teeth against it. He supposes, once he's gotten out of the Galra's sights, there's also the matter of whether or not his injury might be fatal, too.

It's no trouble to outmaneuver the Galra ship-- Shiro hasn't had to fly something that didn't read his thoughts in a while, but he still remembers very clearly how and what to do-- but outrunning it may be another matter entirely. He doesn't have the resources to win against an entire battlecruiser's arsenal. 

Only after about ten minutes of silence, flying desperately toward the nearest star at top speed, does Shiro realize he's no longer being followed. 

That's...weird. 

Now's no time to be looking a gift horse in the mouth, though. Shiro hastily sets to work mapping out a course and programming it in. The nearest star is Szjaarl, which Galran maps don't show as having any inhabitable planets. There does appear to be a mining facility on the seventh world, but whether it's abandoned or active is anyone's guess. Shiro does his best to ignore the terrible numbness in his left foot, plotting a route to the mining facility and then activating his emergency beacon. There's no food or medical supplies on this ship, nor much of anything else. Exactly five days worth of oxygen and fuel, since it  _is_ an escape pod, but that's about all. 

The best thing he can do, and he knows it, is make as little movement as possible. If he conserves that oxygen and his energy, even without much-needed sustenance he may be able to make it on the mining station, assuming it has habitable atmosphere and environs. 

He tries not to think about the very real possibility that he might not make it there in time. Even going at this ship's top speed it won't be easy to arrange, and at this point Shiro's convinced more than one thing has yet to go wrong that must, by necessity, go wrong. 

"Pilot's log, day one. I don't know where I am, or who might be listening. Am on-course to the plant at Szjaarl, should arrive within three days in optimal conditions." 

He could say more; could talk himself hoarse trying to make sense of all the strangeness that led him to this point in space, mysteriously separate from the Black Lion, fighting his way free from the Galra in eerily familiar clothes; but the sound of his own voice is a harsh reminder of how limited his supplies are. He wishes he had something to make himself sleep, but there's barely room to move. So he sits, and idles, and after a few hours he sinks into a flow of piloting, so deeply focused on guiding the ship along his planned path that even the warning pain of his injury has faded from his awareness. 

It all makes so little sense, Shiro thinks, that something feels odd about it. First of all he can't imagine how or why he was separated from Voltron. If the Galra had captured the black lion, shouldn't it have responded to his desperation? Instead, here he sits, floating in space, and there's something empty in the back of his mind, like a familiar part of him is just completely detached, right now. It doesn't hurt, he doesn't feel abandoned, but he can no more hear the black lion than it could probably have heard him. So, he must have been captured, somehow, separate from his lion and from the others. 

He's vaguely aware that his hair has grown out, though it's not so much that he can be sure it's been a long time. So then the Galra have had him in their grasp for at least long enough to make such a change in his appearance, and yet Shiro remembers...

Nothing. Not a single moment between passing out in the cockpit of the black lion, and waking up in the lab room he'd escaped from. It'd been a hard-fought battle, pushing past med techs and taking down maybe a dozen or more drones before he found his way to the escape pod. (Still, it all felt kind of like he was being herded there, didn't it?) 

This doesn't fit. The more Shiro worries over it, the more he becomes convinced that he's missing something central to the big picture. He starts scanning space for any transmissions, hoping desperately he'll catch wind of someone within range. If he could find a friendly ship, then maybe he could ascertain the current state of affairs. Did their plan pay off, or has Voltron been in hiding since the fateful battle that had nearly killed them all? He has so many, myriad questions and no one to ask. It's hours of floating in a daze later that he begins receiving signal from a nearby ship. It's an Olkari vessel, but their broadcast is suddenly ended hours after he first begins receiving it. 

He has a terrible feeling in his gut that he knows why, and does not update his S.O.S., letting his course continue. 

By the middle of the third day, his left leg smells with infection and the knee is swollen up to twice its normal size. Having to breathe in the stink of his own necrotic flesh is awful, but not quite as bad as the fear licking at the corners of his mind, that he will die out here, suffocating, before he ever even reaches the Castle of Lions and can beg them to amputate his leg. He thinks deliriously that at least he will match, and banks left around an ice comet just as the mining station comes into view off the prow of his pod. 

Devastation is all that awaits him there: the ruins of three Olkari ships, and a wasteland of melted slag and burned bodies on the surface, where the mining operation should have been. 

Shiro hadn't made another log entry till now, but he does so in the heat of emotion, even as he's going through the motions, bringing his pod in for a landing on the scarred surface of the now-abandoned world. There is water there. Maybe he can survive. 

"Pilot's log, day 3, nearly four. I've....found the remains of an Olkari squadron and a mining outpost. Both have been destroyed." 

The landing is smooth enough, but even the slight jostle of it is a terrible shock to his injured leg. He sucks in grateful gasp after gasp of fresh air when he opens the pod, though, and grudgingly gets to work with a tourniquet, biting down hard on the urge to scream at the pain of it as he ties it tight. 

The shock of losing that much blood, if he does it himself, would probably kill him. But Shiro has a tool that could work even for someone untrained, if he can just stay conscious long enough to finish the job. If he waits, he might be found and saved by Altean medical technology. (Or at least, saved the horror of having to do surgery upon himself.) The risk of infection spreading beyond where it already has, though, is nothing small. He tries to reason with himself, tries to figure out the last moment he can possibly consider it safe to keep delaying till. In the meanwhile, he'll splint the leg and hobble along as best he can. But if another two days pass without any sign of rescue, then Shiro will have to take care of that problem on his own. 

He tries to explore the planet's barren surface, interrupted every so often by the discovery of more and more bodies of the miners who were abandoned here. 

"I don't know what customs you practiced," he decides, after finding the fourth alien body, abandoned face up to rot under the sky. "But you deserve a better send-off than this."

Shiro begins to collect the bodies together, moving them at great personal cost from where ever they lay to a central pile, which he marks by collecting small, smooth stones, and laying them in a circle around the pile. It feels right, somehow; like he saw someone else doing this, sometime, and they taught him the words. Some of it feels a little like home, as he searches for water to keep himself alive, then wood to burn, to make the bodies into a pyre. His mother had kept his father's ashes in a shrine back in their apartment, and Shiro remembers looking at the urn and wishing they'd had a picture.  _He was never very photogenic, your father,_ mom had laughed. 

At night, when the sky is black and hellishly empty of familiar stars, Shiro misses her. Misses the others. Wishes Lance and Keith were there with him, arguing; wishes he could hear Sam rattling his obnoxious dice and playing games of chance with Matt. Wishes Coran was telling stories about cultures Shiro could barely dream of, will never know. 

On the third day, he collects the last of the bodies he can easily find, and piles them in the ashes of the rest. He lights the fire, and while it's still burning, he speaks over them.

"It's been a long time since I went to any funereal services, so I don't remember any prayers. I'm not a monk; I'm not properly trained in what to say."

The smell of the fire is pungent, almost enough to make him forget the cloying sweetness where his wound is turning gangrenous. Shiro folds his hands in prayer, and does his best to stay steady, to stay calm. It's a hollow effort, and a front for himself, since nobody else is watching. 

"Safe journeys. Uh-- safe journeys to a better life on a better world. To someplace with less...pain. And more compassion." 

His throat is tight, and he is scared. 

If he waits much longer, the infection will spread and may even kill him, though. Shiro has to act, and act fast. 

He has to do it now. 

Taking a deep, long breath he prepares himself, sitting back down inside the escape pod. If he passes out-- no, he will definitely pass out-- he needs to be in a shelter, and this is all he has. If he wakes up later, and hopefully he wakes up, he'll be weak, he'll need to have the shelter to be able to survive. Another breath, trying to calm his nerves, and another, and Shiro lifts his hand, shaking a little. He lights his fingers, and turns them into a sharp, hot knife. 

Cut fast, cauterize the wound. 

Cut fast. 

Cut--

He has never felt such agony, ever, in any of his memories, and the pain rips a scream of mingled fear and determination from his chest as he tries to keep his hand even and finish the last inch of the cut. Shiro gulps for air, panting in shock, eyes blurred with tears and dizziness. He slumps back in his chair, shaking, and falls into an uneasy sleep. 

Then something deeper. 


	5. Y0XT26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for Galra ableism in particular in this chapter. I'm still looking for a sensitivity reader to check on this chapter's writing and it may be edited with revisions once I have found one and they have had a chance to review it.

" _Useless!_ " shouts a Galra commander, and Shiro flinches, unable to tell where exactly the voice is coming from. "Are they supposed to believe he went spontaneously blind?  _This kind of defect should have been spotted in preproduction, you slackoffs!_ "

He woke up blind, and apparently (if the voices are to be believed), it's permanent. There's....so much to feel about that, so much to say, but it's not worth being upset over. Worse has happened to him really than suddenly being blind, and there is more to learn here than what he's being told. Shiro doesn't have to be able to see their faces to sense the murderous intent in the Galra around him. They're going to get rid of him and start over. 

But the question is:  _what are they starting over?_

So Shiro pretends to be more out of it than he really is, terribly hampered by his missing sight instead of just mildly disoriented, and lets them shove him around and march him through a few hallways. They set him down inside some other room, and snarl at someone,

"Enjoy your company. We'll be back shortly."

He waits; waits while the footsteps fade down the hall and listens to get a feel for who else is in the room with him. His fingers are still useful, the galra hand still beams information about what he's touching into his mind through some relay that he doesn't fully understand. [Metal alloy. Wall.] 

Shiro stands up, putting his flesh hand on the wall and his metal hand before him. [Breathable atmosphere, 71% nitrogen, 15% oxygen, 9% vanadium, 5% arsenic.]

[Breathable atmosphere, 71% nitrogen, 15% oxygen, 9% vanadium, 5% arsenic.]

[Breathable atmosphere, 71% nitrogen, 15% oxygen, 9% vanadium, 5% arsenic.]

[Breathable atmosphere, 71% nitrogen, 15% oxygen, 9% vanadium, 5% arsenic.]

[Human lifeform, approx. 7cm ahead.]

"Human...?" He breathes, startled, and then hears a weak, tired chuckle answer him. The sound sends a distinct chill up his spine. "Wh-"

"Don' ask," slurs a voice that sounds like and unlike him, grating and gravelly with abuse. "I don' know."

"What--  _what's going on?_ _"_ He says anyway, and then, "Sorry, I--" 

[Human lifeform, approx. 2cm ahead.]

Shiro touches the face of someone who sounds exactly like him, and they wince, hissing through their teeth and muttering  _shit_.

"Sorry."

"S'fine," says...someone. "Y'don' know either, s'fine."

"...are...y--"

"Yes."

"...how?"

"Cloning." He hears someone spitting wetly, and smooths the hand down the face he is touching, very gently, very light touches. [Organic compound (skin) - IN CONTACT]. When he reaches the lips, the message flips to [Organic compound: 55% plasma, 20% erythrocytes, 16% leukocytes, 9% platelets].

"You're bleeding," he says, not because either of them is surprised so much as that he needs to  _say_ something. He's having a hard time processing what's happening. There's just-- a lot to catch up on. 

The- He- 

The person, the person who sounds like him, doesn't answer, but does lean into the contact of Shiro's metal hands on his face, and he wonders if he could break the Galra restraints without having to look. It's not what he's used to, sure, and he's having a bit of a hard time moving around, but maybe he can do some good here. Maybe they can help each other. 

"Do you want me to get you out of here?"

Maybe it seems like a silly question, but if Shiro knows himself, then it's a necessary one. Control has become his primary tool in combatting his anxiety, his flashbacks, and exerting that control is important to him. So it must be important to...to this other him. 

"D'you think I'm the real Shiro?" laughs the man whose face he is touching, a little hysterical. "I don't even know how I would tell anymore."

He thinks about it, while he moves his hands over to the restraints. The Galra are not particularly original, at least, and have bound this other Shiro exactly as Shiro remembers being bound before. Wrists, probably ankles, maybe a band around his waist. 

This is good. Shiro can work with this. 

"Maybe, maybe not. I guess I'm definitely...not," he says softly. The implications of what that means for him, longterm, are deeply unsettling, but there's no time to worry about that for now. The Galra were talking about him like he'll be going out with the trash tomorrow. Priority one is surviving. Then, Shiro figures, he can worry about the existential angst. "But does it really matter?"

The other Shiro doesn't answer right away, and when he does his voice is quavering. 

"Can we really trust ourselves if we're not?"

That's-- a tough question. He'd expect no less from himself, though, to be honest. 

"I trust the others. The Princess, Keith, all of them-- even if I can't trust myself, I'm sure they'd figure it out in time. They'd know what to do. Even if that means...heh. I don't know what, for me."

There's no response at first, and then a grudging grunt of acknowledgement. 

"So do you want me to get you out of here?"

He waits, still, keeping his hands near the cuff binding his other self's right hand. From there they can work together, help each other to get out. If it's possible that one of them is the real Shiro (and despite the lack of confidence, he thinks this particular self could very well be the real thing, especially since he seems to have been awake longer than Shiro remembers being on this Galra ship), then they must get that Shiro back to Voltron and the rest. And it certainly is possible, so Shiro doesn't try to rush himself. 

"...yeah. Yeah that sounds like a good plan." 

It's not as easy as he'd hoped, sawing through the restraints. He doesn't know where the panel is to release them and while the laser edge of his Galra-tech hand can be useful for most situations, in this one he's going up against what appears to be an energy shackle of some similar composition to the quintessence-powered tool he's using to cut. The high-pitched static-scrape of the contact is worse than nails on a chalkboard and he has a headache from it by the time he finishes cutting through just the one restraint, but it's enough. With his help, the other Shiro starts slicing himself free, working on the other wrist cuff while he works on one of the ankle-cuffs. 

The door slides open again, and someone mutters darkly, 

" _Of course_ this had to happen on  _my_ shift," seconds before the room is reduced to a cacophony of blaster fire. Shiro ducks down, hiding behind the table where his other self was bound, and hears the wet, choking sound of one of the Galra being caught in the throat. More blaster fire, and then a hard  _thump_ , followed by a dazed groan that sounds more like his own voice than the Galra. 

He knows he won't get much of another chance, and makes a break for it, crawling hand over hand toward the door, trying to grab the remaining soldier's ankles and knock him over. He has the element of surprise, sort of, because they weren't expecting him to be able to do much of anything; but they have weapons trained on him, and there's actually more than the two he had accounted for. 

"Don't give up!" he shouts to himself. He only hopes that the other Shiro hears it.


	6. 117-9875

When they need a new sample it has to come from fresh, living tissue. Shiro gets to be awake for about a day when they do, but they've stopped trying to conceal their actions from him because his memory is hazy anyway, and they don't have to do much to keep him guessing. Sometimes he's not sure if he's the real Shiro or not but the tissue samples are real enough. He sees the other hims only when they're deemed unsuitable-- himself, but breaking down at a molecular level; himself, but with joints fused because something in the process they used to accelerate the growth was chemically off this time; himself, but stillborn, because someone on the Galra scientist's staff hadn't realized lungs were necessary for human survival. 

They must be sick of seeing his vital systems laid out piece by painstaking piece, he thinks. Shiro's certainly sick of seeing the Galra. 

When it's done, they always make certain to sedate him, especially after the time he and his white-eyed double nearly made it out. Sometimes they lean in close, whispering  _goodnight, Champion_ as his world is melting into woozy upside-down nightmares, and he can't tell if they know how much he hates them for it, hates the way it twists his gut every single time. The path to the chamber where Shiro is stored is one he has never walked, because his feet drag on the floor instead. He has the distinct impression of a med-room almost exactly like every other one he's ever seen on a Galra ship, but this one has a tank. They stand him in it again, and the quintessence-drenched fluid oozes in, and crawls up his skin and sucks him down into a hazy, dreamlike state where time doesn't matter and his thoughts feel like scattered birdseed sinking into the murky shallows of a pond. 

Sometimes, Commander Imdrak comes to speak with him. Shiro can hear him, see him, but can't respond. Time seems motionless, here. Imdrak's voice is annoying, nasally. His smug smile makes Shiro queasy.

"The latest subject showed such _promise_ , but...ah, well. One of my men got overexcited with the canons," Imdrak sounds almost embarrassed. "Shot the pod down before he could get anywhere near the battlefield, and of course the lions are long gone, now."

Shiro's heart goes out to the other-him. How many is it now? Does he even want to know? Shiro wishes he could apologize to them all. Their suffering happens because of him, ultimately. Because he's not able to get out of here, because he's not strong enough or smart enough to somehow break free. The knowledge that Ulaz was the only reason he escaped the first time eats at him in the between-hours, when no one is here and Shiro has nothing but his guilt for company. Sometimes he remembers Slav's voice over the intercom wailing  _now there's_ **no**   _reality where we all make it back alive!_ and the rage starts churning in his gut because he's powerless, powerless to do anything but float here, drugged and dazed and slowly dying. Every time one of the clones dies, that's still him, dying, isn't it? He sees their faces in his dreams, pleading with him. His face, but not quite right, mouthing:  _Wake up!_

Some days they take him out for exercise, but there's always a gleam in Imdrak's eyes, always a way he watches Shiro going through the motions, doing the exercises he's told to do at gunpoint. They don't make him kill anybody, at least, but something about it unsettles him. He's in peak physical fitness, as healthy as he's ever been, aside from the sedatives and muscle relaxers they keep pumping into him to keep him docile while they work. If any human being could break out of here, it would be Shiro as he is now, genetically modified and poked and prodded against his will until he was strong enough for the Galra battle arena, strong enough to become Champion. It doesn't make sense to him that they want to keep him in such good health if they don't plan on letting him go. 

And it's clear to him that they don't, but what  _do_ they want? 

One oddity he finds is that they don't bother to cut his hair. Time passes, for Shiro, only because they neglect the maintenance of this growth, not bothering to shave him anywhere they aren't doing surgery. (And lately, they don't seem to be doing any.) They clip his fingernails, feed him intravenously just enough not to be starving, keep him just a little weaker than he could be for, perhaps, their own safety. His hair comes down to his chin when they take him out this time, and while Shiro is laying on the med-table, glazed-eyed staring up at the glowing hot wire used for amputation, Commander Imdrak comes in and personally takes the tissue sample himself. He's always a little bit more clumsy than the med-techs, his motions rough, like he wants to scar Shiro, to make his mark remembered. 

"Thank you, gentlemen," Imdrak says, once he's got his syringe full of blood and tissue. "117-9875 is all yours. Just have him back before the next cycle."

Wait. What? 

"...what?" Shiro mumbles, because they don't bother gagging him for this, since they know he isn't going anywhere. Imdrak doesn't answer; nobody does. Something is lowered over Shiro's face, kind of like a gas mask, and in a few short breaths, he's under. 

(He will never, ever be able to go to a hospital again in his life without having a panic attack. If he survives this. If he escapes. _Never_.)

Bits and pieces of visual information filter in while Shiro's floating around between consciousness and awareness. Not Galra, too many eyes. Flowing like a river above him, and long, long fingers. A massive chamber, echoing. 

Lights, the purple of quintessence flickering like a heartbeat. 

Then someone shackles his wrists behind his back, and leaves him kneeling before a bed draped in glowing purple tendrils. There is a strange presence in the room, one simultaneously comfortable and repulsive, familiar and terrifying. It feels as though he is on the brink of an endless void. Part of him, a small part, tired and curious, wonders why it feels like the void is reaching up to greet him.

Shiro drifts, head down, not quite dreaming, until Her voice breaks him out of it. 

"Champion. I trust you have been kept in adequate condition."

" _Haggar._ " 

If it's possible to suffuse a single word with more venom than that, Shiro doesn't know how. Her voice has him instantly on high alert, casting about frantically for the source of the sound, heart rushing in a mix of fear and all-encompassing hatred.  _She_ did this to him. Somehow, every single thing that has happened to him and all the other 'hims' that he couldn't save--  _all_ of that is her fault, and he instinctively and without question knows this. It doesn't matter, though, because Haggar doesn't seem the slightest bit intimidated or afraid of him. (Why should she be, after all?) She ignores him, walking up to the bedside he'd been positioned beside, and leaning over it. 

"...my lord is too short-sighted," she says, candidly, and Shiro is too startled to wonder why she's telling him this. So that is Zarkon, beside him. That's the presence lingering here, making Shiro's skin crawl. "Ten thousand years is too many lifetimes to wait, don't you think? Enough to transform a plan into an obsession."

His hair is in his eyes, and he's grateful for it, hiding him from her a little bit. He feels vulnerable and small and he snarls in defiance instead of answering. 

"Nothing went as planned with you, Champion. Not from that first fight on."

Her lips thin into what might be a smile, and Shiro feels cold sweat on his back as she extends a hand to his face, covering his eyes with her palm. He tries to pull back, and she digs her fingernails into his scalp, pulling him closer, nearly unbalancing him. His legs are falling asleep from kneeling here. 

He hisses _let me go,_  trying to sound like he's about to kill her, like he's the one making threats, in control. He hears his voice shaking, though. He knows she does, too. 

"You were never meant to weaken my lord's bond with the black lion; nor even to fight him as part of Voltron."

It's not possible to tell what she's doing with her other hand from here, but he begins to feel a familiar sensation of dark lightning moving across his skin. That peculiar, energy-sapping effect instantly turns his resolve to mush, his body going limp. He's being held up only by the powerful grip of her clawed hand, and the lightning crackles again, louder. On the bed, he can hear a sharp sound, like someone gasping for breath. Is she draining his life force into Zarkon? At this point, Shiro wouldn't be surprised. He grimaces in pain as the next wave of weakness flows across him, leaving him teetering between consciousness and slumber. 

It takes everything he has to muster up an answer for her, before she can finish him with whatever it is she's planning to do. 

"Might wanna run that by the black lion, then." he strains to smile, summoning up confidence he doesn't feel from the well of spite in his belly. He can feel her fingers tightening in irritation on his face and that's enough, for him. That's enough. 

It has to be enough; it's all he's going to get. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will be a part of a larger series, though it's the first fic I've put up from that series so far. (real) Shiro is not dead! But his fate is uncertain until other things in the timeline catch up to this point. 
> 
> The title of this fic is a reference to the final song in the folk opera Hadestown.


End file.
